By Lionel Gayle
If you checked Wikipedia’s main page, and subsequent pages on its website, you’ll find a sub-head that says, “We’re not done yet.” This is a bit scary because when the organization blacked out its English Wikipedia for twenty-four hours on Wednesday, January 18, 2012, I was deprived of “a free and open Internet” service.
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| The Wikipedia landing page that was visible during the January 18, 2012 blackout protest. |
Even though the free online encyclopedia says “The Wikipedia blackout is over,” I don’t believe it. That sub-head mentioned above clearly indicates that it has more plans to screw its users out of the so-called “free service” if the United States law-makers refuse to kill two controversial anti-piracy Bills.
One is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), introduced in the House of Representatives October 26, 2011 and the other, Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), introduced in the Senate on May 12, 2011.
Although SOPA and PIPA “differ slightly,” one online source says that as laws they would “grant the Justice Department the power to order websites to remove links to sites that are suspected of pirating copyrighted materials.”
Advocates such as Movie studios and recording companies have hailed the proposed laws as safeguard for “American intellectual property” while protecting “consumers against counterfeit goods.” But opponents foresee “a form of Internet censorship” as the move would give the federal government too much power.
Following the January 18 protest, House Bill 3261 (SOPA) and Senate Bill 968 (PIPA) have been put on hold and are being revised, but even Wikipedia knows that it’s not over yet. However, I find its declaration that “We are protesting to protect your rights” highly suspicious.
A quarrel between Wikipedia and the US Congress, or any other party, shouldn’t be the concern of the users and supporters who have transformed this organization into the megalithic repository and disseminator of information that it is today. In addition to fighting its own battle, it should simultaneously deliver the “promised goods.”
If the Bills become laws, it seems there are some complex provisos that could change the way we use the Internet today. If something can be done to change the course of things, I vote in favour. But I object to Wikipedia using its millions of users and supporters as pawns with a view to overpower the decision of a third party, namely, the US Congress. That’s strictly Wikipedia’s impolitic approach to getting even with an adversary.
It is so ironic that, like some 7,000 other websites, Wikipedia interrupted its normal flow of service to protest the Bills that, allegedly, threaten “a free and open Internet.” That action doesn’t reflect the intention of one practising that which he or she preaches. And that’s a sad state of affairs.
Now Wikipedia is boasting how “more than 162 million saw” its blackout page. Depriving users of its service is nothing to gloat over. It’s like a dirty paradox in which it screwed me out of “a free and open Internet,” purportedly to muzzle the two bills it alleges threaten “a free and open Internet.”
Even if it’s only for twenty-four hours, Wikipedia – or any other website – shouldn’t have to screw its users and supporters in order to stick it to Congress for the proposed laws.
